The preschool transition

I've been meaning to do a post for a while on Littles' preschool transition -- but, well, life has been busy. Due in large part to the news from my previous post :)

The transition went fairly smoothly. The first week, the main issue was napping, or lack thereof. She didn't nap at all on Monday or Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, she was so exhausted and sluggish that I thought she might be getting sick! As you might imagine, she was also super crabby at night, so for that week, we mostly brought her home, got dinner on the table immediately, and put her straight to bed.

She did nap on Wednesday and then again on Friday, and she's been doing well with napping since then. Every now and then, she has a day where she naps poorly or completely skips her nap, and then she's crabby in the evening again, but it's fine as long as it's not every night!

The second week, I was in Seattle, so I don't know how she did, but I didn't hear any major complaints from Hubby.

The third week was rough because she started clinging to me and crying at drop-offs. Luckily, this only lasted for that week, and then she was back to being happy at drop-offs. In fact, she gets really excited and says, "My school!" when we pull into the parking lot.

(Now, we have the opposite problem, which is that she throws a tantrum when we come to pick her up. Literally, screaming "No! No! No!" the minute she sees us, stamping her feet, crying, even hitting. Makes me feel like Mom of the Year, let me tell you :( This little "phase" has been going on for a couple of weeks now, and I wish it would end already.)

Another minor transition issue (warning: this may be a little TMI!) was that she refused to poop at preschool for the first month or so. She used to poop regularly after her nap, but I think the napping issues that she had threw her "schedule" off. She wasn't actually constipated -- she just pooped at random times at home, rather than daily after her nap at sschool. Then, suddenly, one day in early July, she pooped three times in one day while at preschool, and she has had no issues in that department since then :)

All in all, the transition was smoother than I thought. I actually expected the napping issues and the crying at drop-off to last longer than they did!

Overall, I'm glad that we made the move when we did. Littles really seems to enjoy all her new friends and the activities that they do. Hubby and I have a few little quibbles with the school (such as sending her home one day with a huge fruit-punch face, after we had specifically requested "no juice"), but as I've written here before, no child care situation is perfect. Littles is clearly safe, happy, and surrounded by people who care for her -- those are the important things!